environmental values on the public lands in Alaska.” Ibid. “And at the same time,” the Act was framed to “provide adequate op- portunity for satisfaction of the economic and social needs of the State of Alaska and its people.” Section 103(c) provides in full: “Only those lands within the boundaries of any conservation system unit which are public WLYO^L^^`NS_P]XT^OPʭYPOTY_ST^,N_ shall be deemed to be included as a portion of such unit. No lands which, before, on, or after [the date of ANILCA’s passage], are conveyed to the State, to any Native Corpo- ration, or to any private party shall be sub- ject to the regulations applicable solely to public lands within such units. If the State, a Native Corporation, or other owner desires to convey any such lands, the Secretary may acquire such lands in accordance with ap- plicable law (including this Act), and any such lands shall become part of the unit, and be administered accordingly.”
ANILCA, we reasoned, “repeatedly ]PNZRYTeP^_SL_,WL^VLT^OTʬP]PY_ɮ And no one disputes that Sturgeon was driving his hovercraft on a stretch of the Nation River (a navigable water) in- side the borders of the Yukon-Charley (a national park). So case closed. Except that Sturgeon lives in Alaska. And as we have said before, “Alaska is often the exception, not the rule.” Here, Section 103(c) of AN- ILCA makes it so. As explained below, that section provides that even when non-pub- lic lands—again, including waters—are geographically within a national park’s boundaries, they may not be regulated as part of the park. As noted earlier, the Ninth Circuit has held in three cases—the so-called Katie John trilogy—that the term “public lands,” bSPY`^POTY,947.,ɪ^^`M^T^_PYNPʭ^STYR provisions, encompasses navigable waters like the Nation River.
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April 2019
The Alaska Miner
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